{"id":1340,"date":"2013-12-29T16:26:13","date_gmt":"2013-12-29T16:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stjohn.openbar.com\/airplane\/?p=1340"},"modified":"2013-12-29T16:26:13","modified_gmt":"2013-12-29T16:26:13","slug":"the-weight-of-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stjohn.openbar.com\/airplane\/?p=1340","title":{"rendered":"The Weight of the World"},"content":{"rendered":"

6 hours.<\/p>\n

I got a bit of a late start, since I spent about an hour trying to source a Heim joint of the correct size from a local speed shop rather than waiting for ACS to ship me one. \u00a0In the end, I was unsuccessful, so I made my ACS order and headed out. \u00a0 Once I got to Oxnard, I stopped in at Aswell Trophy on Oxnard Blvd and they engraved my data plate while I waited. \u00a0 Took about 15 minutes.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_1718\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This was the first task of the day. \u00a0 After that, I went on to the process of weighing the airplane. \u00a0 The scales are for weighing race cars, so there are 4 inputs, but I was only using 3. \u00a0The measuring unit connects to big metal pads that the airplane sits on and totals up the readings from all of them.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_1721\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Some clever person at EAA723 built these ramps to roll the wheels up onto the scales, which was awesome. \u00a0 I couldn’t find a soul around when I was doing this and I couldn’t get enough oomph behind the airplane to roll it up on there by myself. \u00a0I didn’t want to get too big of a running start at it because I didn’t want the wheels to overrun the chocks at the end of the ramps. \u00a0 So I turned the ramps around backwards, wrapped a strap around my tailwheel spring, hooked that up to my truck hitch, and towed the airplane, very slowly, into position. \u00a0The reason you see the wheel pant sitting on the wheel is because I wanted to account for the fairing weight and I haven’t actually finished the fairings yet. \u00a0 The clecos will probably equal the fastening hardware, and if not, they’re well within the margin of error on the scales.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_1720\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The airplane needs to be weighed in level flight attitude. \u00a0 This means the tail has to go up. \u00a0 I used my smart levels on the longerons and cranked up the tail on Ron’s old lift with the tailwheel on the 3rd scale. \u00a0 With all that stuff in place, I came up with these numbers:<\/p>\n